1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to polypeptides that inhibit the NF-κB signaling pathway and polynucleotides encoding the same. The present invention further provides methods for the modulation of and/or treatment of inflammatory responses, oncogenesis, viral infection; the regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis; and regulation of B or T lymphocytes in antigenic stimulation, by administering the polypeptides of the present invention to a subject in need thereof. Finally, the present invention provides a method of identifying polypeptides that modulate oligomerization of NEMO.
2. Discussion of the Background
Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling is an essential signal transduction pathway involved in inflammatory responses, oncogenesis, viral infection, the regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis and in the case of B and T lymphocytes in antigenic stimulation (Ghosh, 1998, Annu. Rev. Immunol.; Karin, 1999, J. Biol. Chem.; Israel, 2000, Trends Cell Biol.; Santoro, 2003, EMBO J.). In mammalian cells, there are five NF-κB family members that dimerize: RelA, RelB, c-Rel, NF-κB2/p100/p52 and NF-κB1/p105/p50. NF-κB whose predominant form is a heterodimeric transcription factor composed of p50 and RelA subunits, remains sequestered in the cytoplasm through association with members of an inhibitory family of proteins known as IκB. Upon stimulation by the cytokines TNF-α and interleukin-1, endotoxin (LPS), microbial and viral infections, pro-inflammatory signals converge on the canonical IkB kinase complex (IKK), a protein complex that is composed of two kinases subunits, IKKα/IKK-1 and IKKβ/IKK-2 and a structural/regulatory subunit NEMO/IKK-γ. Once activated IKK complex phosphorylates IkB proteins, triggering their ubiquitination and subsequent degradation by proteasome. Free NF-κB can then move into nucleus to initiate or up-regulate gene expression. Although IKKα and IKKβ exhibit striking structural similarity (52%), exquisite genetic studies have shown that they are involved in two pathways for the activation of NF-κB (Pomerantz,2002, Mol Cell). IKKβ is the pro-inflammatory kinase that is responsible of activation of classical NF-βB complexes whereas IKKα in association with NF-κB inducing kinase (NIK) plays essential roles in the non-canonical NF-κB signaling pathway (Senftleben, 2001, Science). IKKα plays also a role in keratinocyte differentiation but this process is independent of its kinase activity (Hu, 2001, Nature).
The NEMO protein (NF-κB essential modulator) plays a key role in the NF-κB pathway activation. The NEMO protein is associated with IKKα and IKKβ protein kinases in a high molecular weight complex called the IKK complex. The IKK kinases are activated by phosphorylation upon an unknown mechanism, which is believed to be a result of NEMO oligomerization (Traincard, 2003, J. Biol. Chem. submitted). The presence of the NEMO protein underlies IKK activation since NEMO-deficient cells are unable to activate NF-κB in response to many stimuli. NEMO is composed of an N-terminal IKK-binding domain including a large coiled-coil (CC1). The C-terminal domain functions as the regulatory part of the protein, which has often been reported as a binding template to link many upstream signaling molecules or viral proteins (Ghosh, 1998, Annu. Rev. Immunol.; Santoro, 2003, EMBO J.) Interestingly, mutations responsible for IP and EDA-ID pathologies were mainly found in this part of the molecules (Döffinger, 2001, Nature Gen.; Zonana, 2000, Am. J. Hum. Genet.). The C-terminal domain is composed of the minimal oligomerization domain including two sucessives coiled-coil motifs, CC2 (residues 246-286) and LZ (residues 390-412) (Tegethoff, 2003, Mol. Cell Biol.;Traincard, 2003, J. Biol. Chem. submitted), and a zinc finger motif at the extremity of the C-terminus.
The biochemical mechanisms triggering the activation of IKK in response to pro-inflammatory stimuli remain unclear. It has been demonstrated that phosphorylation on two serine residues in the activation T-loop induces activation of the IKKβ. However, the mechanism that leads to this phosphorylation event is still unknown. One possible mechanism consists of the conformation change of the kinase induced by NEMO oligomerization (Traincard, 2003, J. Biol. Chem. submitted). This change of the oligomeric state may induce the T-loop activation by a mechanism of trans-autophosphorylation (Zandi, 1997, Cell; Tang, 2003, J. Biol. Chem.). Consistent with the role of NEMO oligomerization in IKK activation, mutations in the minimal oligomerization domain failed to rescue NF-κB by genetic complementation in NEMO-deficient cells activation in responses to many stimuli. Moreover, enforced oligomerization of NEMO lead to full activation of IKK complex. (Inohara, 2000, J. Biol. Chem.; Poyet, 2000, J. Biol. Chem.; Poyet, 2001, J. Biol. Chem.). Recently, the phosphorylation and the ubiquitination of NEMO in response to TNF-α have been reported, (Carter, 2001, J. Biol. Chem.; Trompouky, 2003, Nature; Kovalenko, 2003, Nature). However, these NEMO modifications have not been demonstrated yet as a crucial step to activate IKK complex in response to several pro-inflammatory stimuli.
Inhibition of NF-κB activation constitutes a privileged target for development of new anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer drugs (May, 2000, Science; Poulaki, 2002, Am J Pathol.). Among many protein actors in NF-κB signaling pathway, IKK complex represents one of the most promising molecular targets for discoveries of the new specific NF-κB inhibitors. To minimize the potential toxicity effects in vivo, therapeutical success will greatly depend on the abilities of the NF-κB inhibitors to block activating signals without modifying the basal level of NF-κB activity. May et al. described a cell-permeable peptidic inhibitor that block specifically the pro-inflammatory NF-κB activation by disrupting the constitutive NEMO interaction with IKK kinases (May, 2000, Science; May, 2002, J. Biol. Chem.). Modulating protein-protein interactions by the rational design of peptide that alter protein's function provides an important tool for both basic research and development of new classes of therapeutic drugs (Souroujon, 1998, Nat Biotechnol.), especially with signaling proteins that exhibit flexible and dynamic binding properties (Pawson, 2003, Science). Numerous studies of peptide modulators have been described in the literature where peptides mediate protein's function by interfering with localization (translocation) (Lin, 1995, J. Biol. Chem.), recruitment to receptor (Chang, 2000, J. Biol. Chem.), intramolecular interactions (Souroujon, 1998, Nat Biotechnol.) and oligomerization (Judice, 1997, P.N.A.S.). In the latter, inhibition of HIV-1 gp41 fusion protein with various peptides provides a clear proof-of concept (for a review see Chan, 1998, Cell and Eckert, 2001, Ann. Rev. Biochem.).
Under this theory that inhibition of NF-κB activation provides a desirable target for the development of new anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer drugs, the present inventors have set forth to discover candidate anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer drugs, as well as to provide a method of screening for the same.